While going through the Half Blood Prince again, I noticed that Harry came across the spell in Snape's book. I found it kind of strange since, it was a very popular spell, and Harry actually saw his father cast it on Snape in their 5th year...if so, why would Snape have said he created it and wrote it in his potionsbook for the 6th year.

Not sure if this was talked abotu anywhere else, but was just a passing thought while reading it. If it was an honest mistake by JKR, will love her works "none the less".

When I read that I was also a bit confused. I highly doubt she made a mistake but it is possible. But I am pretty sure that everything we are confused about, such as this, will be explained in the 7th book. As for now, we can only make guesses. Maybe Snape lied, maybe he didn't create that particular spell; my theory is that maybe after Harry's father used the spell on Snape, he wrote it down for future referance, to call it his own, or maybe even try to figure out a spell that could block that particular one. Just a theory (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

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my theory is that maybe after Harry's father used the spell on Snape, he wrote it down for future referance, to call it his own, or maybe even try to figure out a spell that could block that particular one.

On my way home, I was thinking a bit more about it... there was a note about it in the book, mentioning it was non verbal, and it was the first spell Harry was able to do non verbal... so Snape might have been able to transfer it to a non verbal form.

I think Snape invented it previously and that's why James thought it such fun to use it on him, and why Snape was even more enraged than the picking-on alone.

This makes perfect sense to me. Assuming that Snape did invent it and James used it against Snape for fun, that may have been why Snape invented a non-verbal version of it. And maybe James invented the written spell and Snape the non-verbal.

Yes as Serverus Snape was the inventor i think that James Potter, thought it would of been more fun to use the spell on the creator. For example look how mad Snape was when Harry tried to use his own spell on him.

He also used the Sectum Sempra on James on the same day (his worst memory), so we must conclude that he definitely had the book during his 5th year.

So either the curriculum was different and the book was used by Slughorn in the 5th year course, or Snape was allowed to skip a year of potions because he was too advanced to be in the 5th year course.

I tend to think that the explanation is that Snape did indeed get into the 6th year course during his 5th year. I seem to remember that Sirius made fun of him in PoA.... the movie line was "why don't you go play with your chemistry set?"

Or maybe... Snape had a bit of Hermione in him and liked to read ahead... so he bought the book in his 5th year... or his 4th year for that matter...

It may also be why he didn't get the dark arts job for so long... DD knew he was a potions prodigy, so put him where he was needed most, maybe...

Of course, there is a simpler explanation than Snape being allowed to skip a year... Snape did indeed invent the spell before the sixth year, and wrote it in the book which was the sixth year text book at that time.

Why did Snape have a sixth year text book when he was in the fourth/fifth year? Because it was his mum's book! We know the book was 50 years old or so, so it is highly likely that it belonged to Eileen Prince when she was at school and she passed it (along with any other text books that were still being used at the school) on to her son when it was his turn to go to Hogwarts. Otherwise it is difficult to understand why Snape - who must be in his 30s or early 40s at most (remember he was in the same year as James and Lily) - would have a text book that would have been 20 years old or more when he came to use it. If it had belonged to his mother, and she had passed it on to her son, it would make sense.

Unlike Muggle school, where text books change almost every year, it appears that some at least of the text books for Hogwarts remain in the same edition for a LONG time - indeed Harry and co use the same edition that was in use at least 50 years ago.